BOSTON (AP) — With settlement talks over in the clergy sex abuse scandal, Archbishop Sean P. O’Malley has begun moving on to other topics, speaking out on social issues and jumping recently into the controversies over gay marriage and abortion.

At a recent conference of religious leaders called “The Summit of October to Save Marriage,” O’Malley jumped into the gay marriage fray, saying that, “any redefinition of marriage must be seen as an attack on the common good.”

The issue has been simmering in Massachusetts, which is awaiting a state Supreme Judicial Court ruling in a lawsuit that seeks legal status for same-sex marriage.

He led an anti-abortion march in Boston, telling the faithful in a homily beforehand: “We’re not about simply changing the laws. We’re about changing a culture of death into a civilization of love.”

Church observers said it was inevitable that the new archbishop, who had focused initially on swiftly settling sex abuse lawsuits against the church that had sparked a furor worldwide, would start pressing the Roman Catholic church’s agenda on social issues.

“It’s just that priorities are priorities and first things are first,” said Russell Shaw, a former spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “He had to come on board and deal with the scandal before he dealt with anything else.

“This is the man. This is the way he is. Nobody should be surprised or dismayed by any of that,” Shaw said.

When O’Malley was chosen by the pope to succeed Cardinal Bernard Law as head of the nation’s fourth-largest diocese, he was described as a healing force — but one who supports the church’s conservative teachings.

O’Malley was installed July 30 as the head of the Boston Archdiocese, which has an estimated 2.1 million parishioners.

His first priority was to settle hundreds of clergy sex abuse lawsuits filed by alleged victims who accused priests of molesting them and the archdiocese of covering up the scandal. Last month, the church reached an $85 million agreement to settle the cases.

Philip F. Lawler, editor of Catholic World News, said he thought the church would feel the effects of the sex-abuse scandal for a long time. But he said O’Malley “has got to go on and lead the church in other ways.”

Not everyone is happy with O’Malley’s return to social issues, however. Paul Baier, president of Survivors First, a group that advocates for clergy abuse victims, said it came too early — at a time when tougher measures still need to be taken to remedy the church’s sex abuse misdeeds.

“To get to the social issues, we need to first deal with this horrific problem of priests raping kids and bishops covering it up,” Baier said.

Baier questioned whether O’Malley had the moral authority to speak out on social issues after the scandal.